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South African Links Spy to Slaying of Swedish Premier<insert name=__subtitle>South African Links Spy to Slaying of Swedish Premier (the s.c.nordic FAQ)South African Links Spy to Slaying of Swedish PremierAbout : culture,
history, places of interest and other things. This page is a part of
the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file for the newsgroup
soc.culture.nordic. Its purpose is to provide some general information
about the Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and
Iceland), to cover some of the topics frequently discussed in the
group and to introduce new readers to the group.111111 >
>
>
Subject: South African Links Spy to Slaying of Swedish Premier
From: "Stephen B. Kennedy-IV"
Date: 1996/09/27
Message-Id: <52gfog$ko5@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.south-Africa
September 27, 1996
By SUZANNE DALEY
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The commander
of an apartheid-era police hit squad
testified Thursday that one of South Africa's
most notorious spies had been involved in the
assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme of
Sweden more than 10 years ago.
Since Palme was killed in Stockholm as he was
walking home from the movies with his wife in
February 1986, police have received more than
18,000 tips, and thousands of theories have been
put forward. But the case remains unsolved.
In his testimony, the commander, Eugene de Kock,
said the assassination, by a lone gunman who
shot Palme in the back of the head, had been the
work of Operation Long Reach, a secret
apartheid-era program intended to harass,
silence and gather information about opponents
of South Africa's white-led government abroad.
De Kock, convicted last month on 89 charges,
including 6 murder charges, made the allegation
during a hearing to help the judge decide on his
sentence.
He provided no details to substantiate his
claim, saying simply that he had volunteered to
provide law enforcement authorities with
information on the case. Prosecutors who were
cross-examining de Kock in the Pretoria Supreme
Court on Thursday did not pursue the matter.
"It was one of Craig Williamson's Operation Long
Reach projects," de Kock said of the
assassination. "I wanted it to be investigated
before it was covered up."
Williamson, who could not be reached for
comment, was one of the government's most
effective spies in the 1970s and '80s and has
admitted his involvement in many bombings and
other activities against foes of apartheid.
Williamson has reportedly applied for amnesty to
South Africa's newly created Truth and
Reconciliation Commission. He said recently that
he was now earning his living importing
cigarettes and soda to Angola.
Sweden's ambassador to South Africa, Bo
Heineback, said Thursday that any new
information about Palme's death would be
welcome. He said the involvement of South Africa
had been the subject of speculation before
because of Palme's strong anti-apartheid stance.
But he added that theories had run the gamut
from conspiracies involving the CIA, the KGB and
Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad.
While de Kock, the former head of the notorious
Vakplaas police unit, spent last week confessing
to an endless stream of activities that included
torturing, shooting and blowing up political
activists, Williamson has done much the same in
the press over the last year and a half.
Among his most notable confessions was to his
role in sending the parcel bomb that killed Ruth
First, a prominent academic and journalist and
wife of Joe Slovo, a leader of the African
National Congress, in Mozambique in 1982. The
bomb, he said, was meant for Slovo.
He has also described his role in the killing in
1984 of the activist Jeanette Schoon and her
young daughter, who were living in the Angolan
city of Lubango. The bomb had been intended for
her husband, Marius Schoon, an ANC operative.
Officially, Williamson left the police
department in 1985, ostensibly to go into
business with an Italian millionaire operating
from the Seychelles. In reality, he then started
Long Reach, a company that did some legitimate
international security work, but which was
largely created to give him the cover to do
whatever he pleased around the world.
Williamson has told reporters that Long Reach
specialized in intelligence gathering, doing
things like recruiting Ugandans to spy on ANC
students in Tanzania, using Ghanaians and
Malawians to recruit spies in London and using
Britons to recruit spies in African countries.
In 1987 Williamson left Long Reach to take up a
position as a National Party member of South
Africa's now defunct President's Council, a
prestigious advisory body.